Just for Ducks

Wood Duck Update 6-29-17: The ducklings are born feathered and ready to leave within 12 hours of hatching, as they are not fed in the box. They have to jump out of the box to the ground beneath the nest, and then join mom in the creek to start feeding. The amazing process is shown below, in a sequence of photos taken within less than a minute. First, the mother Wood Duck leaves the box, then perches on a branch near the box and makes modified hatchling-style peeps. The photographer could hear all 12 ducklings inside the box peeping back as they climbed up and out of the box in turn, and jumped in the creek. By 11AM the family had left the nestbox area near Creekside and Main in Walnut Creek, and had reached the Iron Horse Trail Bridge by Civic Park. This season Just For Ducks hatched out 84 ducklings - 36 ducklings on the Civic Park reach of Walnut Creek, 36 ducklings on San Ramon Creek and 12 ducklings at Heather Farm.

"Wood Ducks deserve a second chance. The fact that I'm impacting the environment in such a huge way, it's humbling." With this insightful attitude, Eagle Scout Candidate John King from Troop 405 is working with MDAS Volunteer Coordinator Brian Murphy to install and maintain 12 nest boxes along Grayson Creek in Pleasant Hill. He has enlisted the support of his neighbors using leaflets and emailed monitoring schedules, and gotten their permission to place the boxes on private property adjacent to the waterway. To help John with his project costs, visit his page on the GoFundMe secure online donations service.

Our partnership with the California Waterfowl Association's California Wood Duck Program has been going on for over a dozen years in Downtown Walnut Creek.

Wood Duck nest boxes have to be checked every day to determine the success of the hatch, as ducklings are in the box less than 24 hours. They leave to join their mother in the creek below to start feeding, but the hen will not call them out of the box if she thinks there is danger.

Interestingly, we have discovered that a couple of pinches of cayenne pepper inside a box keeps fox squirrels out, leaving them available "just for ducks".